INTERVIEW MANDATORY

"When I personally think back to the last really great death metal records from Germany, whose songs I can always remember, I can only think of Morgoth's "Odium" and the debut album by Crack Up, which was released twelve years ago."

Here is an interview with German old school death metal outfit Mandatory, which I conducted in 2007. Bandleader and guitarist Sascha Beselt talks about the German death metal scene in an interesting way- from a music-historical point of view alone this interview is interesting. The new wave of German death metal bands - names such as Chapel of Disease, Lifeless, Slaughterday, Arroganz, Sulphur Aeon, Wound or Revel in Flesh, many of which were or are still based at the busy label F.D.A. Records - only started a few years later. The album "Adrift Beyond" announced here was finally released in 2010 via the renowned Spanish label Xtreem Music, and in 2012 the band released their previously unreleased debut album "Ripped from the tomb" from 2003. Nothing has happened on Mandatory's Facebook profile since 2015, so the band is probably no longer active, even if there was never an official break-up. Looking back, you might think that Mandatory should perhaps have stayed active with their old-school sound for a few more years in order to gain more attention in the course of the aforementioned revival of more traditional sounds. But be that as it may, enjoy this little trip back in time to an era when most bands were still on Myspace instead of Facebook.

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Hello Sascha, how are you? First of all it's great that I've become aware of Mandatory, please tell me when the band was founded, your line-up, the various releases - in short, the story of how it all came about.

Hi, thanks for the opportunity to be interviewed, the biography in brief: we founded Mandatory in the summer of 2001. At the beginning the band consisted of Stine (drums/vocals) and me, Sascha Beselt, on lead guitar and two other members on bass and second guitar, but they had to leave after a few weeks because the commitment left a lot to be desired. Since we had written the material completely on our own, we recorded the first mini-CD "Divine Destruction" on our own as well as the follow-ups "Curse of the Undead" from 2005 and the still current "...Where they bleed" from 2007, released by Asphyxiate Records from Australia. Fortunately, all releases have been very well received so far.  In January 2008, Obliteration Records from Japan will release a compilation of all previous MCDs plus six bonus tracks under the name "Exiled in Pain". The album "Adrift Beyond" will be released later this year. In the meantime, there are new recruits in the form of Adrian Kostrzewski on bass and Steffen Röttle on second guitar.

What are your influences? Did you have a decisive experience when you got into death metal? And could you imagine making other music?

To the first part of your question: I was always totally obsessed with music, even as a small child in the playpen I listened to Mike Oldfield and the Stones, then later to ZZ Top and Queen, which I still love today. In my early teens I also enjoyed Metallica, Maiden, Guns N Roses, the usual suspects. Shortly after that came the death metal of the 90s, the bands that got me totally into death metal were, for example, Tiamat with "Clouds", Edge of Sanity with "The Spectral Sorrows", Paradise Lost with everything they did before 1995, the early Unleashed releases, Morgoth with "Odium", Grave, and also Morbid Angel with "Domination".

As for the second part of the question, I think people who know me on a personal basis will smile. For everyone else, they probably don't want to know what else I do. I create a lot of other stuff that has little to nothing to do with metal, so in answer to your question: yes, I can very well imagine doing something else besides old school death metal, which is clearly my great passion, so I have several projects

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"But black metal is kindergarten for me."
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What do you listen to privately, what gets onto your turntables or CD players? How do you feel about black metal?

In my collection you'll find hundreds of metal and hard rock albums as well as other stuff ranging from fusion, jazz, classical, pop, country and blues. But black metal is kindergarten for me. I still own the releases of Mayhem and one or two Darkthrone albums, which aren't bad, but overall black metal is like death metal's little brother for me. It always wants to be there and seem bigger and more important than it is, haha.  But fortunately, music is a matter of taste.

Are there any newer old-school releases that you would like to mention?

Deathevokation, Funebrarum (who, by the way, have announced that after years of silence they will release a new album this year 2024 - author's note) and maybe Crypticus. Just check them out. There are hundreds of bands like that on MySpace.

Live performances by Mandatory are rare. Why? You are also critical of the German death metal scene. What don't you like, or what or how should it be different?

Live gigs clearly come after studio work or producing albums, which will always have priority. Why should we go on stage if no one knows our songs? (Many bands see it the other way around and want to become better known by playing live-author‘s note). Personally, it makes not much sense to me, so gigs won't start until next year. We've already had some nice offers for small tours, like opening for Gorefest or Interment. But that would have delayed the recording of the album even more.

On the subject of the German death metal scene: Before I get hate mail and death threats here - I think you've misunderstood something in this regard or interpreted it too heavily. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what a little death metal musician like me thinks about the scene. All I once said in an interview somewhere was that I don't care much about the German death metal underground - and neither do I care about the death metal underground in other countries. I'm not to be found at every umpteenth concert in Cologne, the Ruhr area or anywhere else. And I'm also not a member of any clubs or associations. But that has nothing to do with the quality of the bands or this scene, I just don't have any time for it. I'd rather spend my time working on my own material or writing lyrics. In terms of quality, there is certainly a lot to discover in Germany and many good musicians, but I often have the impression that there is more variety or differences between the bands in neighbouring countries. In Poland or Hungary, for example, there are some very interesting bands that also incorporate influences from other styles. Of course, it's still classic death metal, but with a few more interesting structures. With more groove, for example. The bands here are all too afraid of being labelled as nu metal if they were to play a groovier riff. Just look at the festivals and concerts! In Germany, you only see death metal audiences at death metal gigs. But if you go to Belgium or France, the audience is pretty mixed - you'll see Savatage, Korn and Morbid Angel shirt wearers standing together, they don't think as much in pigeonholes as we do. Our death metal is always well organised. Besides, too many bands are jumping on the American death metal bandwagon at the moment. I notice this particularly strongly because I host our MySpace profile and look at almost all the profiles of our "friends". There are now several thousand of them. I have a pretty good overview in this respect, many German bands are too American. This may seem pretty insignificant to many people at first, but while Poland or Brazil, for example, are developing their own underground profile, with many German death metal bands you get the feeling that only Cannibal Corpse. Suffocation and Nile are quoted. Fiddling to the point of no return, but only very few of them can write catchy songs. When I personally think back to the last really great death metal records from Germany, whose songs I can always remember, I can only think of Morgoth's "Odium" and the debut album by Crack Up, which was released twelve years ago. That was a really cool record! Well, that's just my thoughts on it, you wanted to know. But, as I said before, you shouldn't take everything I say here so seriously. Maybe it's just my personal impression and the reality is different. Everyone should do what he wanted. If he wants to do blastbeats, let him blast, for God's sake....

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"I would say that stylistically it sounds a bit like Grave, Edge of Sanity, Cemetary and Hypocrisy locked themselves in the studio together in 1992/1993."
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What's the status of the new album? What can we expect?

In any case, it will totally destroy and surpass the MCDs,  both in terms of production and songwriting. We personally think that we have delivered our masterpiece. It's hard to describe, but of course you understandably want an answer. Well, if I had to categorise it, I would say that stylistically it sounds a bit like Grave, Edge of Sanity, Cemetary and Hypocrisy locked themselves in the studio together in 1992/1993. Fat Grave-riffs meet beautiful melodies and harmonies that could have been used by a band like Desultory. In between, however, there are also acoustic guitars and keyboards (of the sick variety). I think the extremes just stand out even more. Mid-tempo stompers on one side, high-speed death/thrash on the other, with some very atmospheric parts in between. Anyone who likes the bands mentioned above will have a lot of fun with this album and will hopefully also realise that albums with such a mixture of styles are not to be found too often at the moment! Of course there will also be a great cover artwork, Dan Seagrave can take care of himself, haha.

Is there a particular dream you would still like to realise with Mandatory? A joint tour with a certain band, for example? Or are you rather disillusioned with the music business?

No, not from the music business in general, otherwise I wouldn't be trying to build my whole life on it - outside of death metal. In death metal, it's currently impossible to get a major deal without connections. You always get blocked by the labels. It's all about the dollar. You either need a chick on the mic or you have to totally dilute the sound. Nobody will sign a pure old band at the moment unless they've had a name like Asphyx or Gorefest for many years. But this situation won't knock Mandatory down or change.

What would we like to realise? We'd like to have our discs available in every record shop in the world so that everyone can get hold of them and doesn't have to search the whole underground to find them. So a bigger distribution - that would be our dream. Then a few smaller tours with bands we've liked for years, Unleashed, Grave, Dismember, Asphyx, Benediction for example. We still have to shoot one or two videos.  But all that matters at the moment is that the album is promoted really well. It cannot be left unnoticed, that would be a horror!

Please name the five most important records that you would take with you to the famous desert island.

Only five? It's really hard for me to limit myself like that concerning the death metal genre - but okay, I'll try: Cancer "To the gory End", Grave "Into the Grave", Mortification "Mortification", Edge of Sanity "The spectral sorrows" and Unleashed "Shadows in the deep".

Let's move on to the lyrics. Who writes them and what are they about? To be honest, I rarely read the lyrics of death metal bands. Are they important to you or are they just a decorative accessory and the voice is -in the sense of Obituary- just another instrument?

We usually write the texts together and send our ideas back and forth or either I have a text almost finished and Stinne adds the last lines or vice versa. In the past, our lyrics were full of the usual stuff: revenge, hate, death and zombies. Especially the lyrics of "Curse of the Undead" were pretty hard in this regard, for example when I think of the song "Flesh Possesssed".

So far everything was okay, but from "Where they bleed" onwards we wanted to try something new. I've always liked the lyrics of bands like Paradise Lost or Tiamat, which were always dark, but never slipped into the silly or cheesy, but didn't come across as pseudo-intellectual either. Most of the lyrics on "Where they bleed" and on the new album also deal with death, but more on a religious and/or supernatural basis. It's about the afterlife, the feeling of dying and the peace after death. Simply a little more meaningful than the previous lyrics and still oppressive. The lyrics are therefore not soft stuff, but not the usual rubbish.

The last words belong to you. Here you can get rid of everything that hasn't been said yet.

Thanks for the opportunity to do this interview and to everyone who has stuck it out this far, haha! Look out for the new album "Adrift Beyond", in the meantime please listen to "Exiled in Pain"!